A Disturbing Picture

A volunteer for the orphanage Children's Hope Foundation of China posted a disturbing picture. Posting a picture of this nature online probably crossed the legal boundary in many countries, therefore it will not be included in this post. However, here is a brief description: a 4 years old child (Yiyi) was laying on a bed, with her chest open top-down. A gloved hand was also in the picture, taking an organ (the heart or the livers) out of her chest.

Now, the questions:
1. The child was laying on a flowered quilt, and the background of the room showed shattered dirty cartoon boxes. The lighting was deem. It could not be a scene of an E.R., or any operating room. It could not be in a coroner's office. Where was it then?
2. There was fresh blood on the child's face. Lots of them. Is there a reason to perform autopsy minutes after the death?
3. The secene was positioned to show the child's face, body, and the organ in one composition. It is in good resolution. What is the purpose of taking such picture (except to prove the owner of the organ that was just taken out)?

About the whistle blower: Ms. Wu graduated from Capital University of Medical Sciences. She volunteered in many charity organizations. She also operated a medical equipment company, Beijing Shangdeguangye Medical Equipment Ltd.

Wu also posted a picture showing the child, Yiyi, playing with her a few months ago at the orphanage. After she learned of the child's death, she contacted the Children's Hope Foundation for information but her requests had been repeatedly denied. Another person, Shanghai based also posted she had been served an order to seal regarding this case.

Reader may follow Wu Xuxin's weibo account to check out the image. However, be warned that it is unbearable graphical. And be warned again. It may also be found here before it is censored.

While the head of the Foundation Ms. Zhang Wen responded more time would be needed before all information could be gathered and confirmed, notable writer Xu Zhirong, with online nicker Routangsen or Fleshy Tang Monk, revealed that he learned the Children's Hope Foundation charges adopting families from the US $19,150 plus RMB 35,000 for each child adopted from the orphanage. Also, the foundation has a contract with a linked travel agent that all adopting families must use. Xu demanded the Foundation a candid answer on how much money it made in the child trafficking process.

According to its website, the Children's Hope Foundation is a non-profit organization, which has started providing service to more than 4600 needed children since 1992. It was officially chartered in on 3/29/2010.

Blessed Chinese Intellectuals Sworn to Keep the Caste System

When Chinese intellectuals warned interest groups had become obstacles of China's further development, they didn't mean themselves being one of the most stubborn one.

Admittedly, China's school evaluation system, in particularly the college entrance examination, is very fair on its face value. Despite sporadic and isolated cheating incidents which were extremely rare, a student must take the same exam sheet at the same time with all other kids of his age under prison level monitoring. The exam will then be graded by layers of reviewers also under absolute isolation and heavy monitoring. A high score can usually equate to a better student. However, any extension or stretching from that could be dangerous.

A most heated Online incident, which spanned through the most celebrated holiday in China, the Chinese Spring Festival, was ignited when some questioned whether a popular writer and race car driver Han Han wrote his works by himself. Led by Fang Zhouzi, a PhD in Bio-chemistry, many 'elite intellectuals' mocked Han Han for being a high-school drop-out. They asserted Han, being a 17 years old kid, would not be able to write a best seller novel. They even claimed Han would not be able to read hundreds of books as he said himself at one occasion. Then they drew the conclusion that Han must be a puppet who rely on other people to write articles. One 'public intellectuals, Ms. Peng Xiaoyun even suggested to place Han under criminal detainment to apply criminal interrogation. They deeply believe, having scored higher grade in the examination system, they have the exclusive rights to claim intellectual superiority. And, they have the ultimate obligation to suppress any outlier of this system.

The interconnected online world had captured some of these crusade against outliers.

In 2002, a Chinese student from Harvard posted on the MITBBS. He claimed to be an admission committee member who have access to application materials. He was angered when reading one application from China and notice she did not go to college immediately after high school, but rather earned the degree through self paced learning and then passing examinations. The Chinese reviewer was so angry that he not only threw the application out from Harvard, but also published her information online so that Chinese reviewers in other schools could be alerted.

That girl was admitted to PhD program in CS at UIUC, and graduated a few years later with excellent grade and research.

Last year (2011), a Google Chinese employee did exactly the same when he saw an applicant earned her degree through self paced learning. Even though the girl passed all Google interview sessions, he publicly touted in a post on the MITBBS that unless the girl gave him some 'remedy', he would talk to the HR to kick her out.

There are many reasons a person could fail in an examination system. In Han Han's example, he totally lost interest in the test-driven education system, where all students did nothing but preparing for exams. In the latter two cases, both were from poverty families who could not afford to go to college immediately after high school. But, many elite intellectuals refused to recognize there could be persons, who although scored not as high, are better humans.

Apple: too Far to Turn Back Now

This morning Rush Limbaugh lamented the reason Apple couldn't move their iPhone assembly line back to the US was because of, what else, the Union. The topic was brought up by a leak of discussions last February at White House between Steve Jobs and President Obama. Basically, Apple told Obama there was no way to bring Apple's assembly line back. It's not a pure cost consideration, but rather based on the skills and management of the work force.

An ex-senior executive of Apple recalled the conversation and told the New York Times reporter that "the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts"; or in plain English, American workers were so under-educated, under-trained, with limited cognitive capacity.

He might as well say American workers were pigs. Had Obama realized that was not a joke, he would be on the right track to prepare the American workers for jobs.

The Chairman of Apple's main contracting company Foxconn recently revealed his secret in leading such a formidable workforce that are flexible, skillful and hardworking: to treat them as pigs. Terry Gou stated at a year-end party that his mentor would be the Director Chin Shih-chien of the Taipei Zoo in this regarding. As a matter of fact, he is tripling the wisdom down by inviting Mr. Chin to give a lecture to the company's mid-level managers to share his experience managing zoo animals.

Moral Heroes

The yearly 'Spring Festival Party', a TV show produced by the Central China Television (CCTV), the official national TV station has been the highlight of the traditional holiday for 30 years. It is the most expected, most watched, and more recently, the most criticized show in China. For a young actor, a 5 second appearance in the TV party equates a recognition of national fame and status, which usually translate a 10x appraisal of ticket value everywhere else. On the other side, for an established actor, an unexplained absence from the party will often result in plunged income in the years to come. As a matter of fact, the show is the only TV program that all Chinese, regardless of their social status, have to watch on the New Year's eve, even those who openly hate it.

Understandable, any word or gestures in the show must have been carefully scrutinized by the Central Propaganda Department in the long six months of its production. The Party never missed the opportunity to pass on important message through the show.

This year, ten officially recognized 'National Moral Heroes' were praised on the show. They are small people who had done extraordinary deeds to the society. However, among them, two were questioned by the online community.

• Dr. Liu Yulian made the list for her dedication to patients, mostly poor villagers; but also for her sacrifice. She left her 11 months old daughter, who was sick at the time, bounded at home so that she could go out to treat her patients. The death of the girl did not stop Dr. Liu one night to do the same to her second baby girl, who cheated the death with a 104 fever when she walked out of door with the girl bounded at home.

• Mr. Hu Wenchuan made the list for saving the lives of 4 children drowning in water, while the fifth being his own son.

There is an old Chinese saying, Care for elders like caring for your own parents, and care for youth as caring for our own children. Obviously, Dr. Liu and Mr. Hu had acted above and beyond the tradition value. However, many audiences question what made them do that.

It will be easier to understand if we follow communism ideologies. There is no property, no self, no family, no value, no moral, but only the great movement to liberate the human being led by the Party.

Chinese Intellectuals Forced to Take Side

A high school dropout successfully forced every Chinese intellectuals to take side, twice.

Han Han is an integration of everything a person could have dreamed, in a most wildest dream.

Han published his first novel in sophomore year in high school, a tremendous success by the way. By the age of 30, he had been named the World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010 by New Statesman. Han also made in the 2010 TIME 100 (No. 2 overall by popular vote). Han a born athlete in long distance running, owned the Chinese race car competitions by collecting 5 year-end champions out of last 8. And as a side note, almost every notable Chinese actresses and models were crazy about Han, some publicly begged for a night.

Han built up a follower base with tens of millions of enthusiastic fans in the younger generation without drawing persecution from the weary communism authority. Han spoke up in almost every public instances, but made every effort not to complain, not even a bit. When his books were banned from publication, he quietly trucked them to a paper processing plant without a word. Micro-blogging has become the most popular platform in China, but Han refused to use it, although Internet companies promised multi-million dollar contract as long as he open an account.

When President Obama visited China, Han rejected an invitation from the US Embassy.

So much about this high school dropout...

Han had been known as a flag of the desire and determination to freedom and liberty of the younger generation. However, when he released three essays at the end of year 2011, half of his fans chose to part the way. In 'Revolution', 'Democracy' and 'Liberty', Han mocked the wishful-thinking of the idea that a revolution would be the solution to the complains people have, and suggested instead people should start working on individual liberty.

Many notable Chinese intellectuals labeled the 'Three Essays' a sign Han surrendered to the authority. Some lamented Han lack of formal training in reasoning, being a high school dropout. Some accused Han as a puppet of a disillusioned writing team.

Han took the Chinese online community to another intersection of roads when Mr. Fang Zhouzi jumped on the wagon to join Han's criticizer. Fang made his name in China and abroad as an impartial magistrate, orginally in the academic fields; while quietly Chanted for government agenda on the sideline. As Fang carefully covers his real mission under disguise of public interest, his words have been held as an ever-self-growing bible for many Chinese who can't see through it.

After the fire-exchange between Fang and Han, Chinese Netizens had to mull on the likeliness of which side is working on a commission from the government. Elite and privileged intellectuals must take side in public. The incident is likened by 萧瀚 as the Affaire Dreyfus which would divide the Chinese intellectuals in the years to come.

DPP Lost Election, but Conquered the Mainland

President Ma Ying Jeou of the Kuomintang Party won the re-election in a closely tied election last weekend.

The pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lost the election in Taiwan, however, unexpectedly conquered the online community of people from the mainland. The DPP had long been equated to evils who played with narrow minded village idiots who can't see anything beyond their nose. The greedy former DPP president Chen Shui-bian who was serving jail time for broad corruptions charges did not help DPP's image. And of course, the dirty tricks they played to steal the elections in 2000 was still fresh on tape.

Mainland people who was able to 'climb over the (Great Fire) Wall' was shocked when watching the presidential debate among the three candidates this time. They were surprised to find the main focus of each and everyone of them was on people's well being, instead of ideology or politics. One online post commented, after watching the debate, he had no problem if any one of them turn out ruling China.

Many walked over the red line to express support to the DPP candidate Ms. Tsai Ing-wen, who earned extra bonus points for her conceding speech in which she gracefully accepted the defeat but encourage people to keep on the fighting as 'Taiwan needs different voices'. 'Different voice' is something you do not see in the mainland. Even the 'trouble-maker' James Soong Chu-yu of the People First Party, a member of the pan-Blue Coalition who almost sabotaged Ma's slim edges received applause for making different voices. One thing is for sure, people on the mainland abandoned the independence issue as the sole criteria between right and wrong.

A long time Communism Party member commented after observing the election online: we would not be 'liberating' them if we launched war against Taiwan.